Alarm fault commercial premises. advise required

[anjme]

We are on a monitored system at work (not redcare).
Scantronic system installed by professional company 5 years ago.
We got burgled recently and it was made worse because the alarm company did not respond to the alarm.
They tell us that when the bell box was ripped from the wall the gsm unit shorted out, lost power and was unable to send a signal, the phone wires had been cut at the same time as the bell box was removed.
We are now told that they have given the gsm its own power supply so it cannot happen again.
Is it me ? but I am thinking that surely if the system was installed correctly 5 years ago the sensible thing, to me, would be that for no amount of external tampering should the internal gsm unit fail?
Can any one comment or give me advise.

 

[bernardgreen]

Quite possibly the ripped off bell box wire had the positive and negative supply in it. Short these and the fuse in the power module that supplies the bell will blow. That is not a problem if that fuse only supplies the bell and other fuses are used for other items such as the GSM and senders for messages to remote alarm monitoring.

If there is only one fuse supplying the whole system then shorting pos and neg in the bell box or any where else on the system will blow that fuse and silence the GSM.

If that is the case then look at providing a new and separate fuse for the bell box supply so the rest of the system is not powered down if the bell supply cable is attacked.

That said most alarms seem to have separate supplies to the GSM so it would not be worth ripping of bell boxes in order to short out the supply and kill the alarm.

 

[anjme]

If that is the case then look at providing a new and separate fuse for the bell box supply so the rest of the system is not powered down if the bell supply cable is attacked.

That has been identified as the fault and the alarm company assure me it cannot happen again.
I still am baffled as to why such an event could so easily occur.
I would have thought that an industry standard (especially in commercial properties) would prevent alarm companies installing or supplying equipment that could so easily by passed.

 

[bernardgreen]

I still am baffled as to why such an event could so easily occur.

Lack of worst case scenario planning is often the reason things like that happen. And the economic thinking of the manufacturer may have decided thtat, on the basis of a risk analysis, the cost of an extra fuse was too much compared to the risk of ever needing it.